Dance with the Devil
by Psyromayniak
Summary: Will Graham escapes from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and decides to pay Hannibal a visit. Dark!Will. Hannibal is himself. The master plan is revealed. (restraint, autoerotic asphyxiation, Will on a leash)
1. in the pale moonlight

As he broke out of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane Will Graham had no clear idea as to what he was going to do with his freedom. It wasn't a meticulously planned escape: there was no tunnel beneath his cell; no broken off fork tines hoarded in his socks; not even a bribe made to the Orderlies. In fact, Will Graham had not planned to escape at all, but when a fire alarm began shrieking late one summer evening he was presented with an opportunity that he just could not let pass by.

Breaking free of his restraints, bludgeoning his Orderly and quickly stripping him of his uniform in order to blend in amid the raw panic... none of this was particularly new nor inventive in the field of prison escapes. Especially not to a mind such as Will's. However, the escapade had dislodged something from the back of Will's skull; something that had been lurking in the shadow of his thoughts, a lingering monster from the madness of his encephalitis. Once again he felt the familiar pull as his grasp upon reality began to ebb, overtaken by the near dream like state induced by his empathetic ability.

Except this time it was different. He did not empathise with anyone in particular, more the essence of those who he had assimilated previously expanded to empathise with him. In that instant Will did not fear, as in the past he had feared himself and the consequences of his actions in such an elevated frame of mind. No – this time Will felt a sense of power wash over him, engulfing him with light and _clarity_.

As Will found himself wandering half a mile or so away from the hospital, right hand clutched close to his chest with its dislocated thumb, a feeling of nostalgia spread through him. Faintly he wished that he had his glasses – they would add to this sense of familiarity – but he did not need them.

_He was in a moving vehicle, guards opposite him._

He knew that he would not be missed at the hospital for maybe an hour; perhaps longer if the other patients caused a severe disruption. That was plenty of time for him to commandeer a car.

_He was armed and moving, his mind addled and reality fading in and out around him... but a clear destination formed in his mind._

More than enough time to make a journey to the house that had near enough become his sanctuary in the past months.

The moon was not full that night, it was gibbous – waxing – but the sky was clear and its light cast Will's face into shadow. As he strode, suddenly purposeful, towards the nearest main road the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, revealing a slim line of teeth.

Will's thoughts turned to blood in the moonlight and they appeared quite black.

The house of Hannibal Lecter exuded bitterness. Opening the door was taking the first bite into a rotten fruit; revealing the deception behind its shining exterior and leaving a foul taste in the mouth. Hannibal himself was the source of decay; the twisting serpent at its core. For Will Graham this was a fruit tasted often, his tongue now impervious to its festering. The irony of it did not escape him as he slipped through Hannibal's side gate and almost effortlessly through his back door. He had enjoyed many meals at the Doctor's table, in this very house, each one of them artwork in their own right. Of course then Will had not known of what, or who exactly, had constituted the dish but the flavour of death lingered, then and after, translucent on the pallet. It affected everything impartially.

Will still wore the soft shoes the hospital had given him; their rubber soles moving over the oak flooring with little much as a sound. His right hand was bound now with a strip of cloth torn hastily from the Orderly's uniform. It ached a little. Will ignored it. The house around him was as silent as it was dark, blinds drawn for the most part to block out the unwelcome eyes of neighbours or casual passersby. This was convenient, Will knew, but not unexpectedly so. What Will was more pleasantly surprised by was the lack of alarm. While he had figured Hannibal to be confident in his ability to remove any threat to his property with ease, he had not thought Hannibal arrogant enough to leave out such an important piece of his well tailored person suit: anxiety. America was a land of fear and apprehension amongst the middle class – soothed by the knowledge that their lives and their property were protected by capitalism and government. It was surprising that Hannibal's consumerist acquaintances didn't smell his natural ease at life on him like cheap cologne.

Will had made it to the kitchen, Doctor Lecter's inner sanctum. Carelessly he ran a finger over the granite work surfaces, marvelling at their coolness on such a mild night whilst imagining the sweet horrors Hannibal had brought to them. The Doctor would have prepared his victims here, he considered, dressing them for their exquisite masquerade. But they would only be the choice cuts; the meat would be cold and the mess minimal. Will smiled momentarily at the thought of warm blood running over the cold stone, such a saccharine juxtaposition. He traced a pattern lazily with his index finger as he approached the knife block on the far side of the kitchen counter. He could almost hum.

The knife Will chose was well balanced in hand, neither too small to be effective nor too long to be cumbersome. The blade was roughly six inches from hilt to tip, enough to perforate the sternum; slit the throat nimbly; slip silently through the ribs to pierce the heart. It was a universal kitchen knife, and – like all of Hannibal's blades – sharpened to a keen edge.

Will turned smoothly on his heels, content with his choice. He felt powerful, almost godlike; the blade in his hand the tool of his divine will: to rid the world of Hannibal Lecter; to demand retribution for his deeds; to claim vengeance on the man who so brazenly toyed with the workings of his mind... to rip the ripper. How poetic.

_This_ was his design.

Before Will could reach the arch of the doorway a shape loomed out of the darkness before him. Will saw the flash of fire in the creature's eyes at it stalked forwards, the mass of its body such a complete absence of light; a black hole letting nothing escape. For Will time seemed to stop; his breath still and his heart unmoving. The blackness of the creature unfolded into the room, sending spiralling shadows away from it on the floor, from its arms and in two great tendrils from its head. The antlers appeared to reach up past the ceiling and into the sky. Its body writhed as the darkness expanded, drawing the heat from the air and the hope from Will's very spirit.

A voice like ice shattered Will's skull, "I've been expecting you."

Will felt as though he was staring straight into Hannibal Lecter's soul.

Will widened his stance instinctively, bringing the knife he held into view, the blade catching diamonds in the muted light. Before him Hannibal was near fully dressed; his hair slicked back and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows; waistcoat and shirt both with a button loose. He did not wear a tie; he did not hold a weapon. He was no less intimidating.

Will wanted to speak, but his words had dried up in his throat. There was nothing left he could say, his intent clear in the savage snarl that erupted on his face that he wore like a mask. His hair stood on end; his hackles proverbially raised and his eyes locked against Hannibal's. Will radiated a primal energy found only in the wildest of beasts; Hannibal emanated only a warped serenity. They surveyed each other coolly, two predators intent, circling slowly, stalking their intended prey. Will moved away from the work surface, his grip tightening on the handle of his knife as Hannibal stepped forwards, calmly and deliberately. Will was stronger than he looked, but Hannibal knew that he could easily outmatch him. Whilst Will was well versed in the _theory_ of murder, Hannibal was by far the master of its practical application. Will's mind was clouded by the red mist of rage and the serendipity of his escape: it would make him arrogant, prone to carelessness and bitter error. He overestimated himself. Hannibal, however, was detached, calculating and wholly self aware. He knew the price of a misjudgement, so he would not make one. His approach was duly cautious; knowingly guarded.

The air stilled between them.

Will pounced.

Hannibal reacted.

Their bodies slammed against each other, knocking Hannibal backwards and into the kitchen wall. Will's knife was aimed at his throat, but Hannibal knocked it upwards with an arm. Instead of burying itself into the soft flesh of Hannibal's carotid artery the blade instead found itself grazing the skin of his cheek. While the cut was not deep by any means the steel drew a ruby-red line on the man's face, accumulating in a bead of blood forming perfectly at the surface. The knife's sharp sting sliced through Hannibal's focus and he hissed in annoyance. At once he had grasped Will's wrist, turning it forcibly and placing pressure on his dislocated joint with his thumb. Will's gasp was audible, but soon followed by the deep thud of his elbow connecting with Hannibal's jaw. His grip remained steady. The knife fell silently onto the linoleum.

Hannibal grasped Will's shirt with his free hand, twisting Will's right arm as he did so and forcing his body away. Hannibal stepped forwards as Will moved backwards, distancing himself from the wall behind him. Will resisted, grabbing at Hannibal's bare forearm; his blunt nails leaving an impression in his skin. Hannibal released his grip on Will's clothing and his wrist quickly and without warning. Before Will could act upon his freedom Hannibal had planted a vicious kick into his abdomen, sending him reeling backwards, doubled over and winded. Hannibal stepped forwards instantly, landing a fierce punch in Will's side. His smile was callous at the faint crack of bone. Will was off balance then, his steps awkward as he shuffled away from his aggressor. Hannibal pursued; ever the wolf running down the wounded stag. It took but a push to send Will tumbling to the floor.

Hannibal followed him down with far more grace; almost daintily stooping onto all fours above Will, dazed, having hit his head during his decent. With one smooth movement Hannibal removed his belt from his pants, looping it around Will's neck and fastening it loosely. He didn't want to asphyxiate the man, merely restrain him. Keep him tethered like the stray dogs Will was so fond of. Hannibal held the leather between his teeth as he moved Will's flaccid arms to above his head, his right hand pinning them both down with a firm grip at his wrists. He transferred the belt to his left hand, the weight of his body moving to rest at Will's hips. A soft breeze stirred a blind through an open window, allowing a glint of moonlight illuminate the dimness of the kitchen. The light played across Will's face as Hannibal stared down at him, sallow skin seemingly filled with an unearthly radiance. Will's eyelids flickered open, his pupils diminishing as clarity washed over him once again. Hannibal met his gaze evenly, no longer predatory. The dance was done. Will was his now. He could not escape. For a passing moment Will seemed filled with divinity, bright and iridescent in contrast with the wrathful god he had embodied before. He squirmed beneath Hannibal's grasp to no avail. His breath was laboured and he winced as his chest expanded under cracked ribs.

"This home invasion has been quite discourteous," Hannibal's voice was measured, composed. His hand kept the belt taught around Will's neck.

"What are you going to do?" Will sputtered weakly, biting back the sharp pain it caused, "eat me?"

Hannibal's face creased into a mirthless smile, "Don't tempt me."

Will gazed up at Hannibal, crown not quite resting on the floor – the weight of his head suspended on the strap of leather at his neck. He was acutely aware of the pressure of Hannibal's body, on his wrists and against his groin. His legs were quite immobilised, his arms useless, and his head at the mercy of Hannibal's wrist. He could feel every minute shift Hannibal made, each movement sending an electric current crackling through his spine: there was pain and... something else. Will gulped, running his tongue hastily across his lips. He could feel Hannibal's breath on his cheek, controlled and quite steady. Will's own breathing was erratic. The man above him leant down until his face was millimetres from Will's. Will felt his eyes drawn down from Hannibal's eyes, led by the sharp hollow of his cheekbones to the thin red line on his skin; a single mar on a perfect face. Will's chest swelled with pride at the notion of being the man to put it there – though would not scar – and then suddenly deflated as guilt engulfed him. Despite knowing exactly who this man was, knowing what he had done to others and knowing what he had done to him, Will felt as though he had committed a cardinal sin. Like pissing at an altar. He had planned to kill the man, and he was by no means undeserving of that fate, but drawing blood from this beautiful monster suddenly, ironically, seemed _wrong_.

Hannibal shifted again and Will gasped as warmth spread through his body. Blood rushed in all directions within his veins: gushing past his ears, spreading up his neck and into his cheeks as a ruddy blush as Will felt himself harden under Hannibal's body. The Doctor's eyes flicked down then, a long moment later, back up; meeting Will's freshly dilated pupils. Hannibal tugged gently on his belt, drawing Will's head up and closer to his own. Open mouthed he trailed his nose over Will's cheek before coming to rest at the curl of his ear.

"This _is _a surprise," his murmur is laced with heat, cut short in favour of moving his mouth down to Will's neck, teeth grazing against his skin.

Will's sharp intake of breath was partially shock, but mostly – he came to realise – pleasure at the sudden wet warmth of Hannibal's tongue gliding across his jaw. His lips parted unconsciously, meeting Hannibal's mouth in open readiness. The kiss was long, near tender if the Doctor's insistence had not been so plain. Will felt as if he should be resisting, fighting against the man whom he had come to inflict his wrath upon; but he found himself responding in turn, his own tongue almost as demanding as it snaked past Hannibal's and into his mouth. It brushed across Hannibal's teeth, teasing the sharp points of his canines before resting against the roof of his mouth. Hannibal withdrew from the kiss slowly; gently enclosing Will's tongue between his incisors. It would have taken a moment to bite down, and even less effort. Instead Hannibal tilted his head downwards to Will's chest; releasing the hold he had on his wrists in favour of pushing up under the ill-fitting Orderly's scrubs to feel his skin. He was warm to the touch, his stomach and chest coated in a light sheen of sweat. Hannibal felt him recoil as his hand passed over Will's ribs as they jarred. Regret flared within him then, but was driven away by the sensation of Will's hands clumsily tugging at the buttons of his waistcoat.

Hannibal removed his hand from Will's shirt to transfer the belt back into his mouth. Deftly he reached into the inside pocket of his vest to remove a small, unopened tube and a slim line square packet. These he placed next to Will's head before nimbly unfastening the remaining buttons followed quickly by those of his shirt. Will's hands were on him before he could shrug the garments off, stroking upwards from his stomach to his chest. Will thumbed over Hannibal's nipple with one hand whilst the other journeyed downwards to the fly of his trousers. Hannibal closed his eyes briefly as Will cupped him through the fabric, pressing down a little harder onto Will's crotch.

Hannibal grasped the collar of the shirt Will wore with both hands, pulling sharply to the side and listening, satisfied, to the ripping sound the fabric made as it tore. With his torso exposed Hannibal distractedly ran his fingertips across Will's sternum. Will's petting became stronger, and Hannibal tugged upwards with his teeth quite without warning as he felt Will reach into his underwear. Transferring his weight from Will's hips to his knees, positioned either side of the man beneath him, Hannibal moved his hands to pull the loose pants down past Will's thighs. His erection was clearly visible beneath the plain, faded white underwear given to him by the hospital. Hannibal, eying him, wasted no time in removing these also. Will wriggled under him again, but this time to his favour. He gracelessly toed off the canvas shoes and squirmed out of the Orderly's pants. He kicked these and his undergarments away carelessly, splaying out his legs and bringing his knees up. They brushed gently against Hannibal's bare sides.

Hannibal changed position once again, moving his legs from straddling Will's stomach to resting between his spread thighs. He reached for the packet by Will's head as the other man's hands worked his trousers and silk boxers fervently down to his knees, Will biting his lip as he uncovered him. Hannibal dexterously stripped the thin condom from its packet and slid it on, pulling on Will's leash as he felt searching fingers fondle his balls. He cracked the tube next, slathering the lubricant onto his hands. Idly his left hand stroked himself while his right found Will's constricted opening. Unhurriedly he slid his middle finger into him, palm down. Will moaned softly as he twisted his hand to bring his palm upwards, cupping his balls and caressing them with the same thumb that had pressed so savagely against his dislocated joint.

Will wrapped his arms around Hannibal, fingers clawing at his back. With a spiralling motion Hannibal drew his fingers almost all of the way out of Will to add the third. Will's muscles contracted around them before loosening as he groaned. He pulled back against his leash a little, but Hannibal held it firmly between his teeth. He pushed his fingers up to their base inside of Will, drew them out then slid them back in. He worked Will open patiently, responding to each muscle spasm in turn. Before long Hannibal had built up a steady rhythm, fucking Will firmly with his fingers. Will shut his eyes, his breaths coming quickly but no longer intermittently.

Will moaned, louder, pressing his hips down against Hannibal's hand. He smiled past the leather in his mouth and slid his hand out of Will, internally conserving the faint noise of disappointment the man made. In one swift motion Hannibal wiped his hands along the torn edges of Will's shirt and grasped the end of his belt with his left hand. He tugged sharply, bringing Will's head higher, arching his shoulders and making the thick strap cut into the skin at the back of Will's neck. Will made a pained sound; it would most likely bruise. Hannibal smirked. With his right hand he guided himself into Will, pushing deep inside of him with a single hard thrust. Gone were the delicacies of foreplay; the starter to whet the appetite and gently foreshadow the main course. Will's groan was as audible as it was long. His back arched and Hannibal felt the strain against the makeshift collar.

"Oh God, Hannibal," Will's voice was thick and rasping; strained against the pressure.

Hannibal thrust into him again, closing the gap between them and pressing his body against Will's. Will's moan was a delicious mix of sharp pain and euphoria, his thighs squeezing Hannibal's sides and his nails scratching ribbons into his back. Will felt Hannibal's mouth at his neck once again, tongue flicking over his skin. The heat moved down to his shoulder as he felt Hannibal push into him again, this time the pressure of a jaw strong enough to snap bone teasing gently at his flesh. Will ran a hand up into Hannibal's hair, fisting tightly and breaking the hold of his gel. Hannibal responded in turn with a harsh pull on the belt around his neck and a deep, powerful thrust.

"Oh _God_"

Will could feel his cock pressed between them, the friction of Hannibal's stomach against his erection nauseous but exhilarating. Despite the ache it caused in his side, Will found himself moving his hips along with Hannibal's; pressing himself into each and every one of his thrusts. Will's other hand moved down Hannibal's back to grip his ass, his arm pulling into each rock of his hips. Hannibal grunted against the newly formed love bite on Will's collar bone and moved his mouth back to the soft muscle of Will's shoulder, biting him hard enough to break the skin. Will's yell of pain tempered out into a helpless whimper as Hannibal adjusted his angle and hit hard against his prostate. Will's hips bucked wildly as Hannibal stabbed the spot again, distracting him vaguely from the tongue lapping at the blood trickling from his torn flesh.

Hannibal jerked at Will's leash again, his mouth pressed readily against the open wound. Will tasted of fire and passion and light, as though it was his soul seeping through the lacerations. Hannibal could taste Will's pain in his sweat as they fucked; the cracked bones and bruised skin at odds with the way the Doctor imposed himself on Will's body. He could taste sorrow in his blood, and the anger slowly ebbing from his body, replaced by the pungently sweet tang of a building climax. Hannibal felt Will's limbs clutch him tightly, marking his body with the promise of bruising almost in desperation; to act as proof that Will Graham was real; tangible and not just another dream within a dream, lost to the waking world.

Hannibal's rhythm had increased in speed and force; he felt a tightness in his loins, a sweet ache running from the head of his cock to the base of his balls. He had marked and been marked; he had pleasured and been pleasured; he had looked into the soul of the man beneath him who had in turn stared deep into the blackness of his. It had been a long, long time since Hannibal had fucked on such equal grounds.

With Will restrained and screaming whispers beneath him, incapacitated to the point of helplessness, Hannibal could have paused to consider his unique view on the definition of equality. However, his thought process was hijacked mercilessly by the wave of physical pleasure rushing over him; his orgasm diffusing white-hot through his nervous system. His fingers tingled against Will's skin, his scent filling him and his taste overflowing. Hannibal heard the melody in Will's own final shriek harmonising at a crescendo with his own. Hannibal felt the leather slip through his fingers as Will threw back his head to howl, the moonlight glinting in his eyes and in his blood. Hannibal felt the heady heat and viscosity as Will's semen spilt over between their bodies.

Their breaths were laboured, their muscles were fatigued, their minds were swirling intangibly.

Hannibal pressed his mouth to Will's as he withdrew. He tasted of that raw, primal energy; the spice of blood, sweat and semen.

He tasted divine.


	2. serenade

The night was receding. The deep blackness that permeated every inch of the land, seeping into bones and cold flesh sweating in soundless fear was fleeing, chased away by the haze of dawn; a dull, hopeful knife cutting clumsily through the shadows. It would return, as it always did, but in the meantime more than twelve hours of brilliant light and heat and happiness would rule the hearts and heads of men; thoughts of the darkness kept duly at bay like a dog, chained and muzzled. It was an ancient dance of hunter and hunted; night fleeing day only to return at dusk with vengeance. The power waned and waxed from each side, neither ever claiming a permanent victory. Whilst one side might declare triumph for a time the other would _always_ reclaim it.

It was only a matter of time...

Will Graham sat perched on the edge of Hannibal Lecter's neatly made bed, ill-fitting pants and torn shirt discarded completely, leaving him bare legged and bare chested. His greying underpants were the only barrier between what little modesty he had left and the man now crouched in front of him. But modesty was not a priority in Will's mind: the throbbing pain of his cracked ribs and bruised and bitten torso had instead taken clawing root in his frontal lobe, dulling any emotional response that might have surfaced. Embarrassment, gratitude and even anger barely registered against the persistence of his suffering.

Hannibal, in a much milder state of undress, held an antibacterial wipe in one hand and a pad of gauze in the other. There was bloodied cotton wool and an open bottle of saline solution by his knees, having already flushed the livid bite mark through to cleanse it. Gently he cleaned the dried blood from Will's shoulder, pressing lightly against the mar in his flesh.

It stung like hell.

Hannibal exhaled through his teeth as he felt Will flinch, with due cause, but did not pause in his work. He did not want the wound to fester; that would rather spoil the beauty of it.

"Will, you must keep still," he murmured, placing the gauze over the wound and holding it firmly. He dropped the bloody wipe and tore off a length of tape with his teeth.

The shadows of Hannibal's teeth in Will's shoulder wept a little, oozing interstitial fluid but no blood. That was promising. With luck the wound would heal without complication, leaving intimate impressions in brilliant white scar tissue for Will to bear either with pride or with shame for time without end. Pausing to consider, Hannibal found that he would not mind which it was that Will chose.

"Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired...," Will said through a clenched jaw.

When Hannibal had sunk his teeth into his deltoid muscle the pain had been mixed into an electrifying cocktail of pleasure and adrenaline and dopamine. But now they had left him, ebbing away from the moment of that final kiss flat on the kitchen floor. They left a void surrounded by the sharp edge of the sharper pain. Will missed them. Bitterly.

Hannibal's smile was audible, though his face was too far past Will's peripheral to see.

"Perhaps you should find a different doctor, Will," his hands now free, one trailed down Will's left side to rest on his upper thigh, "one that might put up less of a fight when you attempt to impale him in his kitchen."

Inclining his head to the side, Hannibal placed a soft kiss on Will's jaw.

"At least your hands aren't cold," was Will's muttered reply.

He had felt a dull stab of guilt, but it did not penetrate the thick curtain wall surrounding his consciousness. The wall throbbed with his right side and his left shoulder and the back of his neck. If the wall had not been there mayhap the guilt would have bounced entirely off of Will's morality. It wasn't if Hannibal had not _deserved_ to have a knife lodged in his trachea.

"Your ribs will need to be bound, as will your hand... properly. I assume you dislocated that when you escaped?" Hannibal acknowledged Will's shallow nod, "though there is little I can do for the bruising," he stood, removing the used medicinal supplies from the floor and stepping into the en suite bathroom.

Will made a faint noise of disappointment at the abyss left by Hannibal's skin breaking contact with his own. It felt like the coming of winter, extracting the heat of summer and the comfort of autumn to leave behind a desolate, barren landscape.

Hannibal was quick to return; clutching bandages, scissors and a box of what were presumably pain killers. These he placed in one of Will's white-knuckled hands, who opened the box, popped out two capsules and dry swallowed them without so much as glancing at the label. His next actions were, he felt, not his own. Hannibal's hands settled firmly on the tops of his biceps, gently tugging him into a standing position. His body acquiesced instinctively, Will's fate placed firmly and, whether right or tragically not, permanently in the hands of the man before him. They guided him forward into the centre of the space between the bed and the opposite wall and, a puppet master pulling at the strings of a wretched marionette, lifted his arms up and out to the side. Will stayed stock still as Hannibal laid his palm flat against his right side, his breathing shallow and heartbeat slow.

"I do regret having to do this, Will. I _am_ sorry...," Hannibal's voice was low, sincere, as his fingers pressed through bruised skin to assess the state of his fractured ribs.

Will was unsure as to whether the man was referring to the shooting pain dancing from the ends of his fingers now or to being the cause of the injury in the first place. The warmth from his hand trailed upwards then down, fingers gliding over his ribs as if they were piano keys; the sharp pain Will felt resonating through his skull the chords singing out Hannibal's serenade.

"It is not as bad as you think. Most of the pain is from the bruised tissue. With sufficient support you should be good as new in six weeks at the most," Hannibal let his hand linger, playing out its final, drawn out notes with a lazy proficiency. Once again Will's pain was transformed, elevated into finest art in a great and beautiful becoming.

Will's response was to hold himself upright, unmoving from the position Hannibal had placed him; his muscles tensing as each note rang. He felt vulnerable and tender, as if the nerve endings of his very soul had been exposed. Gone was the blackness, the writhing mass of rage and vengeance burning in the depths of his mind. Instead it had been replaced by a calm ocean, serenity and composure a mask for the malign, devastating strength that it possessed. It was unreservedly controlled, driving back the raw emotion and primal instinct to the darkest recesses of his psyche. It had taken until now for Will to recognise the entity now reigning over his mind, but he felt it in the pleasantly cool touch against his horrifically bruised side and saw it in the frozen irises studying his unclothed skin.

_The pendulum swings._

Will saw himself; a pitiful, dishevelled mess. He sweat and he bled and he came, all so easily and so _willingly_ at the hands of Hannibal Lecter. To a lesser man Will would have been disposable, a pleasure to be enjoyed and then thrown out when he was broken. But Hannibal was not a lesser man. To him, Will was raw energy; unharnessed and magnificent. He could be abused so easily, so sensitive he was to the world around him. But Hannibal did not wish to abuse him. Hannibal wanted so desperately to mould and form this force of nature into a beautiful, organic structure. All his cogs would align precisely, meshing and turning to produce fluid motion and music that embodied the sheer splendour of the human race ascended beyond comprehension.

Will saw himself as an adversary; Will saw himself as an exquisite rarity; Will saw himself as an _equal_.

Hannibal had once said that Jack Crawford viewed him as fine china, but Will now saw through Hannibal's eyes the true nature of his being. It was not that he was fragile, nor that he was broken: Will Graham was _unfinished_. The final piece of his soul had yet to be laid, and the craftsman who completed him would determine whether he was an unstoppable force for good or for ill.

Jack Crawford had had his chance, but it had long since past.

Hannibal Lecter now took his turn, and he was a man of taste and finery. He would not leave Will to collapse, for that would be an insult to his magnificence. He would restore that which other men had patched carelessly or left to decay and he would fit that very last gear, crafted himself from human bone and inlaid with black gemstones born of his own heart.

_This was his design._

Will's eyes opened to the tug of material against his chest. Hannibal had wrapped the bandages tightly around his torso, constricting his ribs with a firmness that held them strongly in place. Will found he could feel it resist when he inhaled, but the pain of his ribs and bruised muscle was not increased – at least, it hurt no more than it had done to breathe before. One of Hannibal's hands was laid across his stomach as the other tucked the bandage in on itself to secure it. He could feel a similar tightness around his thumb. Will's eyes wandered down and widened in surprise at the first signs of the purple-green bruise that had begun to form spread across his torso. Beneath Hannibal's hand and peeking far more livid from beneath the bandage Will could see for the first time the true and brutal extent of his clash with the Doctor just a few hours previous. From the tenderness of his neck as he moved it Will was certain that a similar contusion would be present and _far_ more visible where his make-shift collar had been fastened.

"How are you feeling?" Hannibal said; his work with the bandages done.

Will let his arms drop slowly to his sides before he answered, "Like I've been run over by a truck."

"You will feel much better in a week or so. The healing process will be underway by then. Until that point I would prescribe pain relief medication... and considerable bed rest," Hannibal smiled softly, gesturing to his immaculate and un-slept-in bed.

"Well... Doctor's orders..." Will's voice sounded a little strained as the great fatigue that had been looming over his shoulder – almost as prolific as the darkness – finally hit him. The armour of his adrenalin rush rusted and fell to crumbling pieces.

As he himself sank onto the bed, Will found that Hannibal had, seamlessly, pulled down the duvet to leave the under sheet exposed. Will then _very gently_ swung his legs up and lowered his upper body, finding the support of the apparent memory foam mattress spectacularly wonderful. The pain in his side seemed to itself relax from its unrelenting, sharp throb to a mere dull ache. The soft, feather down pillows melted into the back of his head and the pain in his neck disappeared completely. This was the most comfortable he had been for months: prison beds not being known for their luxury.

Mutely Will noticed the halogen haze above him vanish with a click as Hannibal flicked the switch, plunging the room into an eerie half-darkness illumined only by the first hushed rays of dawn peering around the edges of Hannibal's thick curtains. Eyes closed, he listened to the subtle sounds of undressing and the folding of clothes, the soft scrape of cotton on wool saturating the stillness of the room. The pad of Hannibal's feet across the carpet drew closer and Will became aware of the man's presence next to him in the bed, the mattress adjusting to accept his weight.

Will turned his head to the side, cracking his eyes open in drowsy curiosity to see what exactly this man of such refined taste in clothes wore to bed. His gaze met an expanse of bare skin, stretching beautifully unbroken from throat to ankle. A vivid blush crept up his neck and into his cheeks, his jaw slackening slightly. Dilated pupils fought a stiffened neck to turn away; the wanton reticence of his subconscious shamelessly prevailing. Will watched unabashed as Hannibal's muscles contracted, undulating beneath his skin as he shifted his body to one side to meet Will's unsubtle gape. He was utterly comfortable in his own skin; not a hint of anxiety could be seen in the vast, tranquil sea that was Hannibal Lecter. His serenity was angelic in form, almost luminous as a being so beautiful without restraint. He was like a wild animal, Will mused, a creature that was near mesmerising to lay the eye upon, but with the ability to strike you down with a fatal blow quite effortlessly.

"I hope that you do not mind if I sleep unclothed, Will" Hannibal's voice was low in a feline purr. He was a jaguar; sleek and solitary and quite deadly.

"Not at- go ahead," Will's breath caught in his throat, his eyes finally tearing away from the man.

Hannibal shifted again, and Will felt the silky friction of Egyptian cotton caressing his body as the other man retrieved the covers from the foot of the bed and drew them up to encompass them both. Will was at once keenly aware of the shared space between them; Hannibal's breath and body heat diffusing into his own, their closeness made closer by the bubble enclosing them both. Will felt ensnared. He had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He was at this creature's mercy, and he loved every second of it.

"What are we going to _do_, Hannibal?" Will felt the man move closer, his chest brushing against Will's arm. His chin rested lightly on Will's shoulder and his hand snaked down to lay upon his lower thigh.

"That is a conversation for another time; a later time," was the utterance in his ear, followed immediately by the subtle press of lips to the sensitive patch of skin just below his lobe.

Will hummed in response, daring not to move from his position. Flat on his back he was comfortable and the pain had momentarily red-shifted into mere cosmic background radiation.

"Did Jack tell you I'd escaped?"

"... no, not yet. I would have expected him to have called by now. We will talk... in the morning," the heat of his breath left Will's neck, to which Will was about to voice his protest when it reappeared at his hip.

Will's jaw fell open, "Doctor Lecter-"

Hannibal's weight had moved from beside him and was now positioned beneath the duvet above Will's lower body. His hands settled at the band of Will's boxer shorts and slowly, oh so slowly, worked them down to his knees.

He brushed his parted lips across Will's leg, trailing the tip of his tongue towards his inner thigh. Will's breaths came quicker, lungs expanding as far as the bandages around his chest would allow, as he felt Hannibal's tongue pause, briefly, before moving upwards with increased pressure and obvious intent. It found the base of his now semi-erect cock and slid down along the length of his shaft.

Will's moan was low and drawn out, intensity increasing parallel to the migration of Hannibal's tongue towards the head of his cock. "Hannibal please-"

At once the heat was gone. Lecter instantly raised his head, creating an oddly shaped lump in the bedclothes. "Would you like me to stop, Will?"

For a beat, silence expanded between the two men, exposing a void of unwrought tension between them. It was expelled just as suddenly as it had arrived by a single, guttural syllable.

"No."

Will could almost sense the Cheshire grin he knew was stretching between Hannibal's lips as he ducked his head back down. He felt the heat of it pressed against the tip of his cock, then through his entire – now quite full – erection. Hannibal's mouth was near all encompassing, his tongue lapping like the rolling waves at the underside of his shaft as the man sucked him; teased him; worked him. Will fisted his hands in the sheets as Hannibal's head began to mirror his tongue; dipping down and then pulling up, like waves breaking on the rocks. Over and over and over again.

Will clenched his teeth together as he fought to keep himself from trembling. Building pleasure pulsated through his body, twisting into his limbs and spiralling through the endless abyss of his mind.

Hannibal's tongue ceased its laboured movement and his head paused drawn back, holding little more than an inch of Will between his teeth. His tongue flicked forwards to lick over the head of his cock, tasting the first few drops of pre-ejaculatory fluid that had formed. To Hannibal's mind Will was sweeter now: without the great darkness, the raging anger and searing pain Will had transformed himself from heady, cultured piece de resistance to elegant dessert. Hannibal relished the change on his pallet, admiring the way in which the new flavour accentuated those that had before been muted and restrained.

Hannibal then began to circle his tongue, slowly spiralling down the portion of Will's cock he held in his mouth and then equally as gradually back up to its head. Will moaned stridently beneath him, struggling to keep still as his muscles spasmed and burnt with an ecstasy beyond comprehension.

Hannibal responded in turn to Will's laboured movements; twisting his tongue faster and faster until he could hear Will moaning, near chanting, his name. Quite suddenly he stopped, drawing Will's length back into his mouth in near entirety.

"Hannibal"

He kept his head still, mouth and tongue applying a fervent suction more than sufficient to make Will squirm.

"_Hannibal_"

Will's back arched. His hips lifted. His hands tore uselessly at the sheets.

"_HANNIBAL_"

Hannibal caught Will's load somehow maintaining his elegance; hot and naked and perspiring beneath the light duvet. He waited until Will had, panting, let himself sag down onto the mattress before releasing him, then sliding back up the bed to lie beside to him. Hannibal locked eyes with Will, half lidded in the faint light, and rolled his tongue around his mouth, savouring his taste like fine wine. Will watched with a shameful curiosity, his face flushed red not only from exertion, as the other man all but daintily swallowed.

He closed his eyes as Hannibal settled, naked skin rubbing unashamedly against skin. Will wriggled a little, taking care not to move excessively, so that he could rest his head against Hannibal's shoulder. His hand moved across to splay gently upon Hannibal's stomach, his leg twisting over the Doctor's at the shin and the ankle.

All was peaceful, all was quiet. The faint chirping of birds faded into background noise against the sweet synchronisation of their breath. Hannibal's hand found Will's in the darkness.

The phone rang.

Three shrill tones sounded, discordant and uncomfortable, before Hannibal could reach out to the night stand to take it off the hook. The small LED screen lit up a violent blue with an equally unwelcome name: Jack Crawford.

"Hello?" Hannibal's voice was thick with feigned sleep as he settled back into his position next to Will, "Jack, it's four thirty in the morning."

He paused, other hand re-discovering Will's skin beneath the covers.

"Will Graham has escaped from the hospital? When did this happen?"

Will turned then, despite the protest of his ribs, towards Hannibal, who was lying now on his back. He repositioned his hands so that one clutched his upper arm whilst the other rested on his chest. Beneath his fingers he could feel the steady throb of Hannibal's heartbeat.

"I assume I am not in any danger if you are only calling me now-? Ah, yes. Yes. I understand. You believe he's left Baltimore? The state?" Hannibal squeezed the portion of flesh between his fingers. "Of course, I will phone you if I can think of anything."

Will was amazed at the sincerity in Hannibal's voice; of the way he did not sweat nor squirm nor the rhythm of his heart even increase. The deception was quite ingenious, for not once did Hannibal speak an untruth. It was all in his body language and that which he withheld. It was as if his tongue was wrought of mercury and laced with a deadly honey.

"Thank you for letting me know, Jack. Of course. You too." The button compressed with a startled beep as the phone call ended. The handset itself was set aside on the bed.

"Jack called."

"He did."

"He thought I'd left the state..."

"Yes. He did."

"...what are we going to do, Hannibal?"

The repetition was, Hannibal mused, almost adorable. Will was his own lost dog, a stray that he would take into his fold to protect and to nurture, which looked to him as a new master. Hannibal Lecter tilted his head to press his lips languidly against Will's, tongue darting to lick along the bottom of the man's lower lip.

His voice was not loud, yet it resonated with an inhuman quality that filled Will's mind completely.

"I have a plan for you, Will."

"I'm listening."


	3. preludes

_"I'm listening."_

A dangerous smile spread across Hannibal's face, the growing light of dawn picking out the white in his teeth against the abject dimness between the two men. They were there, together two separate beings and yet a single entity. They shared the same space; they breathed the same air; their naked bodies entwined with their sins and their sweat. Pleasure and pain had danced between them, spinning hatred and affection across boundaries that soon crumbled to dust. Each man had been laid bare by the other. They held over one another power and exposed weakness: protection and vulnerability. For Hannibal, this was a moment of unadulterated perfection.

He trailed his hand up Will's back from where it had been resting at his hips, finding purchase anew in the curls of his hair. Their mouths crushed together, Hannibal's tongue slipping between parted lips to rediscover the delicious tang that was Will Graham. Will's palms massaged circles into his sides. They stayed like this for a time, suspended, the only sound the gentle, appreciative hum that radiated from pit of Will's chest.

When at last they broke Hannibal let the air settle before speaking. He took the time to appreciate the sight of Will before him, knowing that whilst it would not be the last time it would most certainly be a while before he would see the man in such a state again. He wet his lips, noticing Will's eyes focus on the movement of his tongue.

"I want to clear your name, Will," the simplicity of the statement was almost overwhelming; "I want to prove your innocence."

Will's bitter laugh cut through him like a scalpel through soft tissue, "Clear my name? After you were the one who iframed/i me for the copycat murders in the first place?" Will's hands found Hannibal's elbows beneath the bed sheets, "That's... unexpected, to say the least."

"It was never my intention for your incarceration to be permanent, Will. Quite the opposite in fact," Hannibal's gaze was firm, "I created the copycat as a separate identity meant, initially, to distract you from the Chesapeake Ripper, but also to act as a test for you. To see if you could deduce that the two murderers were in fact one and the same. You superseded my hopes, Will. You worked out who I was. However, the FBI has yet to connect the Ripper and the copycat."

"Because they think that _I_ am the copycat. Thanks to you."

"Yes, precisely. I plan to show them the error of their ways, Will."

"Excuse me?"

"I will show them that the Ripper and the copycat are tantamount. I will show them that the Ripper has been playing a game with them all along. That I have them dancing like puppets on strings; guiding them to false verdicts with planted evidence. The Ripper will assimilate the copycat. The FBI will be humiliated, quite publicly. You will emerge the innocent victim."

Will was silent for a moment, his focus jumping between Hannibal's cool irises and the point on the bridge of his nose just between his eyes. When at last he spoke his voice was incredulous.

"So this, what? This whole thing is an ego trip for the Ripp- for- for you? You played me; had me framed and locked up so that you could make yourself look good?"

"No, of course not Will. That is not why I am doing this," Hannibal was sincere, his long fingers tracing circles on Will's forearms, "Though it _is_ what I wish the world to think of it. You of all people, Will, should be able to see through that mask."

"Me of all people?!"

"Yes, Will. You will be the victim. Broken and beaten, both mentally and physically, by the Ripper and by the FBI. You will be cleared of everything and left well alone out of pity and out of professional shame. The crimes attributed to the Ripper: both those that you have been wrongly convicted of and those that... you may yet commit."

Will's eyes closed, his chest expanding against Hannibal's as he drew in a single breath.

"Those that I have yet to commit?" His eyes flicked open to meet with Doctor Lecter's in an unwavering stare, "I hope to God you don't mean what I think you mean with that." His tone did not seem to match his words: they did not hold the gravity nor the level of disgust that one would have expected them to.

"Will, I need you to trust me. Wholly and completely. Each of us has a darkness within us, you just as much as I. Perhaps you even more so, given the... inature/i of your occupation. The only difference is that I do not keep mine in shackles. I know that it troubles you, Will, but you must understand that there is nothing wrong inherently with thinking about killing. There is nothing wrong with actually killing. It is written into our genetics as much as forming collaborative relationships with others or finding a mate. It is evolution, Will. The preservation of our own lives and the continuation of our genetic line."

"But surely, then, killing would be necessity not... recreation."

"Survival of the fittest, Will. Only the most worthy may continue to live."

Will swallowed, bowing his head to bury it in the crook of Hannibal's shoulder. Inside himself he felt his darkness stir, restless and wanting, at the Doctor's words. It was like the ebb and flow of the tide; sometimes building to great heights, sometimes receding, but always there. Always with the promise of return. Will opened the flood gates. Inwards surged the rolling shadows, entwined with the animal scent of Hannibal's musk.

"Tell me what you're going to do."

It was a decisive statement. Will could not turn back after this his only way out would be death.

Will felt the soft caress of Hannibal's right hand leave his arm and travel upwards, burying itself at the back of his head once again. Hannibal's breath whispered across his cheek as his left arm moved to encircle Will in a comforting embrace.

"The less you know the safer you will be, Will."

"Hanni-"

"But that is not to say you cannot know anything," Will settled at his words, "I am going to complete a cycle of rippings."

Will tensed, holding his breath. He knew that killing people was and always had been part of Hannibal's plan, but it seemed so much more ireali when it was spoken out loud.

Will released his breath; "A cycle. That's three victims."

"Yes Will. But they will not be ordinary rippings, per se. The first and second will be reconstructions. Of the copycat killings, to some extent. They will incorporate elements from both personas that were not made public knowledge. This should alert the Bureaux to the possibility that, perhaps, they have made a mistake."

"What about," Will swallowed against Hannibal's shoulder, "What about the third victim?"

"The third will be the pivotal moment in the investigation for the FBI. It will be an open mockery of the events thus far and will supply iall/i of the forensic evidence to required prove that the Chesapeake Ripper and the copycat killer are the same man. Of course, I will have to make it more obvious than I would usually deem necessary to ensure that my message is understood, seeing as you will not be there to interpret to Jack Crawford for me," Hannibal's voice had taken on another quality; now seeming uplifted, near jovial, "I may even take guidance from the legend of my namesake. Jack might appreciate that. Perhaps."

Will's breathing was steady. Controlled. Hannibal could feel the rise and fall of the man's chest against his own, their bodies meshed together in an extraordinary oneness. They were a singularity; a volatile mix of raw empathy and homicidal inclinations that together became more grounded and more stable than either was alone.

"What about me? This will... release me. But to be released I have to be imprisoned."

"It's just past five am. At six I call Jack Crawford and tell him that you are here."

"But... I've been here for hours. And... well... we fought. You broke my ribs, for Christ's sake. Surely that won't paint me in a good light for not being the copycat killer."

"Will. You arrived here at five thirty, in a great amount of pain. As a doctor I chose to see to your injuries before informing the authorities of your presence here. You spent the night hiding in Baltimore; arriving here on foot after being mugged in an alleyway. Do you understand?"

"I- Yes. I understand. But... what about the car? I stole a car and I drove here. It's parked down the street."

"Perhaps not the brightest move on your part, Will, but... it's surprising how many cars are stolen these days. I do believe there's some form theft gang operating in the city. It would be doubtful that the car you stole is still there."

"Wait, did you-? Hannibal! ...Jack said that they thought I'd left Maryland. _Why did they think that_?"

"As I said, Will. Stolen cars are quite common at present. It's in all probability quite likely that there was another car stolen close to the hospital around the time of your escape..."

Will made a noise at the back his throat, muttering "Fuck" into Hannibal's skin.

"You organised this whole thing, didn't you? The fire alarm, everything."

All Hannibal did was smile, pressing his lips to Will's neck.

"Hannibal," Will's voice was smaller now, not resigned so much as... accepting, "when- iif/i this plan of yours works... what's going to happen afterward. I'm released, what? I go home. Pick up the dogs. Fix...boats for a living. The FBI won't touch me again."

"You certainly won't want to return to your house, Will."

"What the hell am I supposed to do, then?"

"Move in with me."

Shock waves rippled through Will's body.

"What?"

"You'll be fed. Supported financially. Kept away from the press. Consider it, Will. At least temporarily. You can bring the dogs."

"You would do that for me?"

"Of course."

Will's hands, now settled on the Doctor's side, gripped him tightly. In the space of a few hours, Hannibal Lecter had transformed from monster – predator – that needed to be destroyed into a lifeline. Once again Will found himself clinging to Hannibal as his only hope; his paddle and his gauge. But this time it was not his own mind that he needed to fight against, it was the rest of the world. People whom he understood so thoroughly and so completely, but who did not, icould/i not, understand him. Hannibal Lecter was the only man with the ability to fathom Will Graham. Will needed him like oxygen, to keep him breathing and to keep him from falling back into the depths of his consciousness.

"Will, all I ask of you is patience. Can you do that for me? Will you wait? Just for a short while, I promise."

A certainty gripped him then; the divine clarity that came with the darker side of his soul emerging from its cage. It tore away the indecision, it tore away the doubt. At once Will knew exactly what was to be done. He embraced it, his body and mouth pressed against Hannibal's bare skin.

"Yes. I will be patient. For you, Hannibal, for you. For no one else. For you."

Will sat perched on the edge Hannibal's sofa, ill-fitting pants and soft hospital shoes now suspended from his body like a poorly hung picture. In place of the torn shirt he wore one of Hannibal's soft blankets draped over his shoulders, protecting his modesty from the police officers that were gathered around him. He played the mute, letting Hannibal explain in great detail to Jack Crawford and another agent the nature of the events that had occurred. There were handcuffs on his wrists, guns centred on his chest. An Orderly held his shoulders too tightly whilst a nurse examined him.

There would be more examinations when they got back to the hospital. His dressings would be changed by hands far colder than Hannibal's; his healing process would be monitored clinically and without emotion. The FBI would talk to him; let him confirm his story, ensuring it lined up with the one that Hannibal was telling now.

Will focused on a spot on the floor, ignoring the gloved hands prodding at his torso. Instead he eavesdropped; something which Hannibal was making relatively easy by the volume of his voice.

Hannibal.

The questioning did not matter as long as he had the right details to present. The doctors in the hospital examining his body and his mind did not matter as they healed him. The wounds themselves did not matter: it was what they left behind. Ghosting impressions of Hannibal lingering on his body; scars to remind him of the man while they were separated. He would wait. Of course he would wait. He would wait for an eternity if he had to, if Hannibal needed him to.

It wasn't dependence. Will didn't think so, at any rate. It was more a longing of his spirit; a need to be free of the bitter isolation that had encompassed it so, for such a long time. As Hannibal had said, it was written in his genetic code: the need to collaborate, the need to mate, the need to kill. It was survival of the body and survival of the soul. Before Will had felt like he was fading; but now he felt alive. He wanted, _needed_, to remain so.

Will would play the role Hannibal had given him as needed: he was lost, he was confused, he was remorseful. Will acted as the innocent man. It was harder than it should have been, considering he was not guilty. Not yet.

The light-headedness that came with change in altitude brought Will's thoughts back into the real world. He had been pulled to his feet by the Orderlies – one now holding each of his arms – and was being pushed towards the door. The nurse was at his side, talking at him about his injuries. Her words didn't register. Hannibal had moved to stand in front of him.

The Doctor placed a subtle hand upon his cheek, thumb brushing over the line of his jaw. Their eyes met on a level plane; a silent understanding shared between them.

Patience.

They would take Will, now, back to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally insane. They would no doubt increase the level of security they had placed around him. Once again, for an unknown amount of time, he would don the prison jumpsuit and have to endure endless probing questions from Chilton, the other doctors and from the FBI. Before, Will was a near broken man, the mental and physical strain of the place shaking his ill-fitting cogs out of alignment even more than they had already been. This time it would be different. Will was a different man. The last few hours had changed him; the darkness within him swelling and released with full consent.

It was as if his true being had been locked away; shackled inside his own mind. Hannibal Lecter had been the key. He was free now, even as the chains of reality grew tighter. Will would endure. For Hannibal. For himself. For their future and whatever it might hold.

_Patience._


	4. lavolta

Nearly four months had passed since Will Graham's escape from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Four long, stretching months. The days had grown shorter; shadows encroaching further into the unceasing busyness of metropolitan Baltimore, cutting short the fervent wanderings of its inhabitants... yet in Will's windowless cell the shadows were frozen in stasis; they themselves falling victim to the bars and barriers trapping the sins of the inmates.

Will did not count the days. He knew that if he did his patience would falter and his trust in Hannibal and his plan would collapse. If he was given a solid figure then he would spend his eternity fixated upon it. He would not be able to imagine a life beyond that figure; nor would he see an end. All he would see would be the number itself, slowly rising, never falling... He did not want to lose hope. Hannibal had made him a promise and he would be true to it, he knew. Instead the days merged into a blurred mass, ever the same routine. The membrane surrounding this mass was thin; permeable. Will could let his mind break free and wander into an imagined future; a sea of ifs and whens and Hannibal. Always Hannibal.

Sometimes Will read, sometimes he drew. Neither, he feared, would ever live up to Hannibal's own prowess. But read he did; requesting books that he thought would bring him closer to the Doctor even as they were so far removed from one another. Philosophy, a little quantum physics, and cookery. Will read the cook books with great dynamism, memorising recipes and techniques whilst pondering which cuts of the human body could replace more traditional meat. If all else failed, that would impress the man, he was sure.

Hannibal...

Surely he was long overdue a dinner party?

In Hannibal's mind, four months was not nearly long enough. He was more accustomed to the long game; to wait out and play to the opponent until their defences dropped and he could strike. He would much rather have waited a year, at the very least – perhaps two if it were possible – but Hannibal knew that Will did not have that stamina in him quite yet. The confines of prison would tug and tear at Will's fractured mental state and before too long he could slip into insanity and join on much more equal terms the other residents of the hospital. Hannibal could not bear to see Will reduced to such a state; the beauty of his mind turned sour by confinement and by Doctor Chilton's ceaseless probing. Hannibal could not allow Will to be broken like a stable pony.

Instead, he would act now with the faint bitterness of October tugging at the frayed ends of a withered summer. With autumn comes the fall of the leaves; the fields stripped bare of their crops to leave a barren wasteland; the first morning frosts glittering on dying grass. The blues and greens of summer fall to bruised brown and red and yellow, a myriad of light and colour as life reaches its pinnacle; it's highest crest and is cut down to dust.

Autumn is the time of the harvest. It is the time that you slaughter the animals for the winter months ahead. It is the time that one brings their fellow man together to feast upon the spoils of endless months work.

Autumn foreshadows the reaper; taking the first lives before the land is stricken under snow and ice and the scythe falls in brutal finality.

Young: early twenties at the most. Her eyes were pale blue and her hair was a deep, earthy brown. Her height and build were not erring towards either extreme. She resembled Abigail Hobbs in almost every way. She had to, of course, for the kill to be apposite. An unsuitable victim would make the authorities question the identity of her killer, for they knew the Chesapeake Ripper intimately through his kills and they knew of his intelligence and his hatred of murder without finesse. If they were to make the correct leaps through victims then a girl who did not fit the pattern of the Shrike, or any male in fact, would make it seem as if the killer was rushed, or blunt, or without the experience of the Ripper.

This was a girl that Hannibal had on his waiting list for quite some time, though he remembered her _distinctly_. Her crime was the most disgusting habit of spitting, equalled by a quite vulgar level of public intoxication. She had approached Hannibal on the street outside of a bar as he walked past one evening more than a year previous to reach his car. She stumbled towards him, her mouth spewing the drunken garble of curses, laughter and unintelligible mixture of consonants and vowels that could only be assumed to be words. This in itself, whilst unpleasant, was not a direct rudeness to Hannibal himself. However, when his tailored suit and stature caught the young woman's eye her general verbal atrocities became focused on him. Again, this was something that could be ignored – and ignore her Hannibal did attempt – until his attention, or lack thereof, towards the woman infuriated her so that she spat a globule of milky phlegm at his impassiveness. It landed, squarely, two thirds of the way down his left thigh.

Of course, this could and would not be tolerated. Hannibal had continued to the end of the street before stopping to wipe the offending humour away with clean handkerchief, then crossed the road and doubled back – unseen amongst the shadows – to seek out the woman. He had waited no more than an hour before she set her drink down for the evening and he could follow her home.

The week before the present night Hannibal had begun his hunt. The woman, he ensured, still lived in the ratty apartment building he had shadowed her to. The neighbourhood was not hugely pleasant, which acted in his favour. Dressed much less conspicuously he had watched the building, learning the woman's routine. Following her from afar to the grimy diner in which she waitressed, poorly, then to her usual drinking spot, then home once more; Hannibal chose exactly the moment and the time of night that he could pounce. And pounce he did.

Doctor Lecter ran his eyes over the now lifeless body of the girl before him. She was laid out upon a plastic sheet; her eyes open wide in terror and her mouth gaping in frozen pain. This was almost a new experience for Hannibal; he was trying his best to recreate – at least in part – a previous kill. But this time he was imitating neither the Minnesota Shrike, nor Georgia Madchen for that matter. He was recreating his emown/em murder scene. Unlike other serial killers, who take their pleasure from repeating the same picture over and over and over, Hannibal was sure to never kill in the same way twice. His identity came from the flair and the style, not from the way that the cutlery was laid out around a body or a name painted on a wall in blood.

At Hannibal's feet there was an icebox, inside of which were a number of filled Ziploc bags. One large one contained the girl's lungs – cut out whilst she was still alive, as he had done to his first Shrike victim. The girl's chest cavity was splayed open; ribcage cracked and bent outward to resemble a jagged Venus Fly Catcher or bear trap. He had also removed her kidneys through two small incisions in her back, as well as portions of muscle from the insides of both her thighs. All of which would cook very, very well. Small paring knife in hand, Hannibal stepped fluidly to the girl's head before crouching down and taking her jaw in his palm. The soft creak of the semi-firm plastic over-suit he wore broke the dead silence of the expanse of disused warehouse surrounding him.

Rigor mortis was yet to set in, the body dead little more than two hours, so the girl's mouth was pliable beneath Hannibal's gloved hands. He pulled down on her lower jaw, opening her mouth wide to give himself access to the girl's tongue. This, which sat swollen and limp below her bottom teeth, he pinched with his index finger and thumb firmly, drawing it out as far as it would go. When it had reached its full extension, Hannibal took the knife and severed her frenulum linguae, allowing him to stretch the offensive muscle much further from her mouth. With deft fingers the Doctor set his knife to work at once, twisting, splitting and shaving portions of the girl's tongue as if he were carving a flower from plump tomato. Once the intricate piece of artwork was complete Hannibal took three silver pins from the floor beside him and fastened the tongue-sculpture to the girl's lips, which – with a little help from the knife blade once again – formed the leaves curling from the flower's stem.

The ribcage, the tongue, the kidneys and thighs... all of these undoubtedly carried the signature of the Ripper. The lungs, tenuous as it may have been in the body's current state, were the integrated marks of the copycat killer. The body of the Girl Who Spat was a masterpiece, but it was yet unfinished. There was one more, final, touch, and then it would be complete. But Hannibal would not do that here. Instead he wrapped the body once more in plastic and, taking extra care not to jostle her head, transferred it into the trunk of his car. Right beside the pair of antlers that it would soon be mounted on.

"You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me," Jack Crawford's voice seemed to echo around the field, ringing in the ears of the forensics team more acutely than those of the officers that stood at the police perimeter.

It was the same field that the first copycat murder had been discovered so many months before.

"Of course, we can't be sure without further diagnostic tests, but it does really appear to be-" Brian Zeller was cut off by a pained noise, somewhere between a groan and a sigh, from Jack as the man buried his face in his hands.

It was the same place in that same field; the same angle, the same elevation.

"A copycat of the Minnesota Shrike, or a copycat of the copycat?" Jack said at last, muffled slightly by his palms as Zeller stole a long glance at the body.

The same positioning on the antler mount as Marissa Shaw's body; the same puncture wounds, the same lacerations... the same knife that removed the lungs of the first victim; the same _God damn_ time of death...

"Well, that's up for discussion. It could easily be either... or both. Or... neither of them." Jimmy Price cut in, joining the discussion; Beverly was still examining the corpse some twenty yards away.

Jack lowered his hands, mouth set in a stiff scowl, "_Neither_ of them, Jimmy? I fail to see how that is possible, given the young, brown-haired-blue-eyed girl dead and MOUNTED ON ANTLERS IN A FIELD IN MINNESOTA. TELL ME HOW EXACTLY THAT ISN'T A COPYCAT OF GARRET JACOB HOBBS OR WILL GRAHAM."

Clouds rolled across the sky, blocking out the light as the sun itself recoiled from Jack Crawford. Both Price and Zeller took a step back, and the whole team collectively winced at the mention of Will's name. Whilst they may not have all gotten on with Will one hundred percent of the time, he was still their colleague, _their friend_, and it was _still_ a painful subject.

When Jimmy answered, his words were careful, "Copycats, notoriously, kill with the most exact symmetry as possible to whom they are imitating... often taking this from press reports, photographs of the scene, even the court cases, if it's possible. Uh... in this case, we see a level of symmetry, of course. A high level of symmetry. From just looking at the scene it's evident that the girl here was killed by someone with a lot of experience... and an in depth knowledge of the Shrike victim's deaths. I mean, the body... There are details, tiny details, that stick in my mind from Marissa Shaw's case. They weren't reported to the press; they were barely worth mentioning in any report. They're all here: all of them. With no exception."

"So... he's a _very good_ copycat?" Jack was incredulous.

"Except that he isn't. Look at it, he's flaunting. Everything that is similar about this death to the one it's imitating is perfect, but there are very prominent areas that it is nothing at all like that or Marissa Shaw's murder. More organs seem to have been removed, for one thing. We're not sure how many yet... And the ribcage, sticking up like that almost like the antlers themselves. And her _tongue_. It's all very... melodramatic."

Jack was silent for a moment. A long moment. It was as if time around him had drawn to a grinding halt, his brain attempting to process, and struggling to reject out of revulsion, the information that he had been given and the possible implications that it could have.

"I would think very hard about what you're going to say next, Price. _Very hard_ indeed."

"Jack, this is only conjecture based upon the immediate evidence we have. Without more time, a full autopsy and proper toxicology and DNA testing I can't extrapolate any more accurately. But..." Jimmy sighed, eyes cast to the ground in a rare sobriety, "I think it's him, Jack. I think it's the Ripper. I have no idea what he's trying to do, but it's him, I'm sure of it."

Zeller said nothing, fingernails digging into his palms as his eyes flicked to Jimmy's in silent agreement. Jack dug his hands into his pockets and threw his gaze to the sky, looking for some answer that would not come.

"For all our sakes I hope to hell you're wrong, Price."

"Me too, Jack. Me too."

"It's wonderful to see you again, Alana," Hannibal leant back on his kitchen counter having passed Doctor Bloom a tall glass of fresh pomegranate juice.

He emhad/em offered her beer, but she had a session with a patient in a little over an hour so had declined out of professionalism. Alana took to the adjacent work surface, her presence filling the room with a kind of luminescence, even as the smell of baking bread made gentle waves that lapped at the senses and sunlight streamed through open blinds to pick out the redness of her shirt and her lips and the lustre of her hair.

In that moment her beauty was unparalleled. Hannibal would have liked to have pressed his fingers to her throat and let her slip gently into oblivion if her skin would keep its warmth and her eyes their sharp intensity and rot would not leech away her sunlit splendour.

"And you, Hannibal," Alana said through a smile, bringing the chilled glass to her lips and drinking with all the elegance of a mantis, poised and pristine, "it's been far too long."

"Well, our work keeps us from each other's company now that our practises are so far removed," Hannibal returned her smile, eyes flicking briefly to her feet, "and now that we don't share Will as a common companion."

Alana's eyes softened at the mention of the man, a melancholy shadow forming beneath them and diffusing into her smile, "Have you spoken to him, recently?"

"I confess, not properly since his escape. I have been meaning to visit... Have you?"

"Last week, actually. I dropped by on my lunch break."

"How was he?"

"Better, I think. Calmer. He seems to have come to terms with his sentence. He seems more... reasonable"

"And do you think he reasons his sentence is fair?"

"I think he knows that, whilst his memory remains uninterpretable, the evidence suggests that he_is_ responsible," Alana paused, collecting her thoughts, "for the crimes that were committed. And until evidence presents itself otherwise he has to serve the sentence."

"You truly believe he is innocent?"

"I do." Alana locked eyes with Hannibal in an unwavering stare, "I honestly do. Be that right or no, even with his encephalitis, I don't think Will could be capable of murder. Do you?"

Hannibal all but grinned at the woman: Alana Bloom, a treasured beauty of mind and soul and body, not unlike Will Graham in Hannibal's eyes, and yet so very, very different. He took her in, then, the firm stance that showed confidence but not arrogance; the slight tilt of her head that begged for a challenge for she knew in sound and unrelenting certainty that she could not be unseated, for she was _right_.

Almost.

It was the source of Hannibal's mirth that she stood upon linoleum that Will had laid upon, a little broken, yet with the heat of murderous intent hanging between him and Hannibal himself. Alana bloom could never cease to amaze him in her resolve and her might. That was why he loved her. There was little he could not love about her.

But he loved Will more.

"That is a very loaded question, Alana."

"It is?"

"Yes. To answer straightly, there is no doubt in my mind that Will Graham is capable of murder, in cold blood or in the heat of emotion," he lingered on his last word to watch Alana's eyebrows arch, "but I do not believe that Will killed Marissa Shaw, or Doctor Sutcliffe, or Georgia Madchen or even, though the evidence does seem to point unbearably the other way, Abigail."

"You don't?"

"Of course not. It's not that he is physically or emotionally incapable of killing, very few people are in actuality, it is that I just think that the way everything happened was far too convenient."

"You mean to say that you think he's been framed?" Alana raised her free hand to her mouth, her eyebrows furrowing.

"It's not an unthinkable possibility, is it?"

Tilted back in his chair, arms dangling uselessly at his sides where they had once thrashed in pain and terror against the restraints of Hannibal's hands, this IT consultant had drowned in his own blood. His mouth was split open in a disturbing Chelsea grin, his flesh cut back to the vertebrae in his neck, near decapitating him. The skin of his upper lip had been pulled upwards in an attempt to peel away his face, tearing the skin to reveal some of his upper jaw before it had been let fall back into place. Hannibal would have liked to have actually removed the man's face, but he was restricted by the MO he was adhering to. The FBI without Will was more idiotic and unperceptive than ever it had been, so he was best to keep his methods as obvious as possible. There would be another time.

Below the man's neck his torso had been sliced open, evenly from his sternum down to his pelvic bone, eviscerating him completely. His intestines were arranged almost lovingly, twisted up around his arms and then draped over one shoulder. Whilst this obscured the man's abdominal cavity it remained fairly clear that his liver, his stomach and his spleen had all been removed; leaving a gaping, blood filled hollow.

Unlike the previous murder, all of the additional aesthetics had been performed post mortem. The office building most likely still had some late night workers, though the security was lax at best, so Hannibal had preferred to keep the man's screams of pain to a minimum.

Whilst Hannibal preferred complete abandonment for his exhibitions of the human body, the use of this office as a gallery could not be called a challenge in any sense of the word. The security cameras were mostly on the outside of the building, with maybe one or two in the reception area, the main priority deterring car jackers and vandals. Equally, the solitary guard made very regular rounds of the building. They took him half an hour to complete, the rest of the time he spent dozing in his office. His walks were taken every two hours.

Of course, the FBI knew none of Hannibal's internal musings about the suitability of his crime scene when they were called to it in the early hours of the morning. If the Ripper himself had been present he would have found small amusement in the fact that the body was called in by another office worker, arriving early; not the guard. It was almost surprising that no one had been killed there before...

Jack Crawford had entered the room, face like a thundercloud, to be met by Beverly Katz with a preliminary report. Price had his laptop open on a popup desk, importing images from his camera, whilst Zeller crouched in front of the body; gloved hands wrist deep in viscera.

The further tests of the last body had shown with a bitter complicity the most probable identity of the killer; that is, an identity that was known only by its alias. The Chesapeake Ripper was meticulous. Whilst the initial appearance seemed to be that of a copycat, the rest of the kill supported his modus operandi to the letter. This scene did nothing to avert their suspicions.

"What the _hell_ is he playing at?" said Jack, a slight growl sounding from the back of his throat and reverberating around the room.

"I think he's playing with us, Jack," Beverly replied, her own face set in stone, "although I can't say exactly why."

"Is this his game? Imitating the crimes we have pinned on Graham but letting us know it's him?"

"He's mocking us. Like he did with," Beverly paused, "with Miriam Lass. Except it doesn't look like it's aimed directly at you."

"Beverly, of course it's aimed at me. He knows me, God damn it, he's done this before!"

"I'm not saying you're not in the crosshairs, Jack. I'm just saying that his range is much wider with this one. I mean, the precision of the kills if perfect. Our investigation on the last girl showed nearly no difference at all with Marissa Shaw, and this one looks to be the same as well. Both Price and Zeller agree with me here, Jack. It's as if the Ripper is imitating his own crimes... I think he's trying to tell us that he is the copycat killer."

"Or he's trying to fool us into thinking he is..."

Brian, now apparently finished for the time being with the mess of blood and splayed intestines in the centre of the room, approached the pair, Jimmy hot on his heels.

"You know, Jack," was Price's first, jovial statement when they were within earshot of each other, "the Ripper is intelligent. That we know. He doesn't do things without putting a lot of thought into them first. Kinda like a true artist, or... an inventor. I dunno. Sure, there's spontaneity. There has to be, for the end result to be new and innovative, right? But every little detail is accredited; there for a reason. God, he's like an _accountant_!"

"I think what Jimmy here is trying to say is that the Ripper would get more satisfaction out of showing us that we _really_ fucked up on account of one thing or another and arrested the wrong guy than trying to make us think that we did," Beverly translated, sharing a glance with Zeller.

"So you're saying that the Ripper _is_ the copycat killer."

"It would explain the blank sheets of paper we have on the actual copycat murders, even though the MO is totally screwed up," she continued, "although we don't have any evidence that would support that in court. The only hard evidence we have is tied to Will. We know _this_ is the Ripper, but all we really have else is that he's really good at imitation, and maybe has an inside source."

"Okay, I understand. But let's pretend for a moment that that doesn't matter – the lack of hard evidence – and the Ripper is actually telling us that he is also the copycat. Why now? Why emat all/em? We have Will convicted; he's gotten away scot-free. Any evidence to say otherwise will exonerate Will and reopen the case."

"Serial killers like recognition. We know already that the Ripper is a jealous murderer. Abel Gideon showed us that, at least," Zeller was the one to reply this time, rolling his shoulders a little in the easy pretence of relaxation, "anyway, the Ripper feels like he's pretty safe as far as the investigation goes. We haven't been able to catch him before, so why would that change now? And if Will is exonerated? We all look like idiots for locking up the wrong guy, the crimes are put under the correct name on our whiteboard and we continue to flounder in our inability to do anything about him."

"So he wants to make fools of us all," Jack lowered his gaze to the floor and steepled his fingers at the bridge of his nose, "and he has one more victim to dismember and give us what he wants us to see."

"You know, out of all the murderers I've helped pursue over the years, I think I hate this one the most," Beverly remarked, her words aimed at no one in particular.

"Really? I think I identify with his sense of humour," Jimmy responded, receiving a punch on the arm for his trouble, "you know, apart from the whole 'killing innocent people' part."

Hannibal Lecter breathed deeply, taking in the very essence of the room. The coppery tang of fresh blood spilt in pints mixed with the euphoria of the perfect kill. It was far more dramatic than he would usually wish to make of a scene, but he felt a little showmanship was more than necessary to do this one justice. This kill was very important. It was the turning point; the lavolta of his plan. This kill would give Jack Crawford everything he needed to prove Will's innocence.

All around him Hannibal felt Will's being; or the remains of what he had been before. The living room was familiar to him, having been where he could observe Will in his own space, a rare place in which he felt completely comfortable. This was no longer his territory, left empty after his imprisonment, but shadows of his former self remained. The small pile of unopened mail left irregularly on the coffee table; the dog hair on the carpet; the musty smell of dog and Will's own sweat. It marked the room – the house – as his and it was a scent that Hannibal knew well. It was in his blood when he bit him; in his saliva when they kissed; it filled his nose and mouth when he pressed his face into the hollow of his neck.

And now it mingled listlessly with death...

...another man's blood and the echo of his screams.

It was a scent that Hannibal felt deep in his gut; pulling desire from his heart to see Will Graham – to touch him, taste him, know him – smeared in the viscous fluid that poured from the man's slit throat, a deep black in the rays of moonlight creeping in through open-slatted blinds. He wanted Will with a knife in his hands and grin etched into his face. He wanted Will showing all that he had learnt from his fellow monsters. He wanted Will to kill for him and with him and without him and _well._

Before him his victim hung limply, suspended by his shoulders, forearms, thighs and his neck on taught fishing wire. Seven large, barbed hooks dug into the corpse's flesh, the whole appearance of the body as some crude marionette; each hook and line strung and manoeuvred by the Ripper. The body was fully clothed, and almost no blood seeped into the fabric. This was due to the fact that the clothes Hannibal had his victim wearing were not his, but those left behind in Will's drawers. The man's physical appearance also resembled Will, as much as it could. He was in his thirties, brown hair and slightly bearded; Hannibal had even perched glasses on his nose.

The man's physical semblance to Will was, of course, only part of the portrait Hannibal had created, whilst it was the most obvious feature. With a small circular saw, Hannibal had cut through the thick bone of the man's skull to reveal his brain – an organ that he wished he could have harvested for himself – to which he then doused in a little run-of-the-mill butane gas, as used in lighters throughout the world, and had struck a match. The blaze, whilst intense, was controlled. Before the tissues could be reduced to dust and ashes it had been smothered and left to cool as Hannibal prepared the rest of the scene.

Forcing open the cadaver's mouth, Hannibal had with gloved fingers slid the par-defrosted flesh of Abigail's other ear into the man's throat, impregnating the dead muscle with the imagined heat of Will's mouth and the soft lapping of his breath as it had been the night he slipped so silently into that very house and had done the same to the man in his fit of sleep.

A foot in front of the dangling corpse hung more fishing lines, each weighed down by their respective bait. All bar one held smaller hooks spearing inch squares of human flesh... but on the last was taped a thin glass microscope slide where laminated between the tiny panes was a single strand of blonde hair.

At last, ensuring his new work of art was perfect; encapsulating the visage that he had built for Will and slashing brutally through the scar tissue the FBI had created as a conviction, Hannibal crowned his piece. A thin, red-brown line formed on the brow of the dead man as his head became once again whole, and at once Hannibal felt himself engulfed. For the first time in decades he had placed true, raw emotion into a kill – this time near as satisfying as the last, though his objective now was far removed from revenge. This time it rang sweet and sound with joy, and with the longing of expectance, the current of his desires for Will Graham running swift and sure through his crime. Of course, no one other than Will would have been able to see his true intensions.

With the last scents of charred flesh and congealing blood diffusing through his nasal cavity, Hannibal did not linger. He removed his tools, wrapped in plastic and placed in a bag, and exited the house as silently as he had entered. Though the ground was wet he was careful to avoid leaving more than a ghost of a footprint as he wandered to his car, some way away. He would strip off his plastic suit when he got there; stow his bag away safely beneath the panel of the trunk and retrieve the small parcel he had concealed.

He would arrive home in good time, with enough spare to send the parcel beforehand on its way quite anonymously, and still sleep for enough hours to leave him refreshed for the breaking news in the morning.

To himself in the blackness of the night Hannibal smiled.

As Hannibal lay still beneath his featherdown duvet he felt a shiver of anticipation run through him; an electric current tingling at the very tips of his extremities and surging down to meet in a ball of sparking energy in the pit of his stomach. It was an unknown feeling to the Doctor, always regarding his crimes with a more professional interest in their press coverage and the fruitless police investigations. But those murders had been committed to satisfy his own needs. This was for the benefit of another.

Contemplatively, it could almost be seen as a selfless act. _Almost._ Hannibal himself was set to gain a great fortune if everything was to go according to plan. The Ripper would be given credit where it had been due for too long; Jack Crawford would be put to ignominy; Hannibal would maintain his veil... and he would be delivered Will Graham in all his magnificence.

_Will._

The greatest treasure of all. The only man to have truly seen Hannibal and to have survived. There was no telling what their partnership could bring to them both...

The restless ball of energy began to spread out, reaching to pluck at Hannibal's nerve endings like the strings of a harp. Its tendrils travelled up a little, into his heart to make it flutter so uncharacteristically and into his fingers to make his fists ball. But mostly it travelled down, pulling with it the desire Hannibal had felt some hours previous and flicking the images of Will drenched in dripping blood with a Cheshire grin stretching from ear to ear behind his closed lids.

Hannibal wanted nothing more than Will to be here with him, already released from his undignified confinement and quite unclothed. Unfurling his right hand he slid it down across the bed sheet, a single destination mapped out without diversion.

At once Hannibal closed his fingers around his cock, his partial erection made solid in two lazy pumps. He tilted his head back as far as it would go and filled his mind with Will.

_How he had looked pinned down beneath him; how his dick had tasted when he blew him; how his cries of pleasure and feral growls had played symphonies in his ears._

Hannibal began to move his hand, slowly at first, as his mind flicked from image to image and his senses filled with remembered sensation.

_The smoothness of Will's bare skin, slick with sweat and chest heaving from exertion. The relative softness of the curls on his head against the coarseness of his stubble and pubic hair. The way Will's sphincter had contracted around him..._

Hannibal's hand moved faster, pumping himself with vigour. He took his bottom lip into his mouth and held it between his teeth, sparks flying in his brain.

_The heat of it: Will's body shedding it in waves into the room as he moved his hips against Hannibal; his core temperature surrounding and engulfing his cock._

Hannibal let his thumb ride up and over the head of his dick, sending ripples of pleasure down his shaft and into the base of his balls. He felt his breath quicken, his face and neck flushing as blood rushed through his arteries at a breakneck pace. His mind flicked again, now forming images of Will in the present...

_Sat on the bunk in his cell, overalls unbuttoned from stomach to crotch. His legs spread out as his own fingers clasped his stiff cock and moved up and down and up and down faster and faster. His face burning red and his breathing ragged, three fingers penetrating his ass as the only thing that filled his head was what it had been like to let Hannibal fuck him._

Hannibal groaned, working himself harder as he was there with Will in his mind's eye, feeling how it felt to fuck him flat on his kitchen floor. Tension began to build in his muscles, his shoulders digging down into the mattress as his back arched and his jaw fell open in a silent scream.

_He had killed for Will that night and it was beautiful._

He fisted his free hand into the sheets, pulling them away from one corner of the mattress.

_He would kill for him again, over and over and over..._

He pumped his hand up and down his shaft faster and harder and harder and faster.

_He would kill with Will at his side, a knife in his hand._

The friction was delicious and unbearable and excruciatingly delightful.

_And then they would drink the blood and eat the flesh and fuck bathed in the filth of their kill and it would be faultless beyond perfection; their love and their lust indelible and raw._

Hannibal cried out, a throaty, animal sound, as he spilled; white and hot and viscous over his hand and the bed and the featherdown duvet; his feigned humanity torn from him in a moment of primal hunger and desire.

He lay almost paralysed as his raked breathing returned to its slower, regular rhythm and the blood receded from his cheeks. The room was quite still, save for the rise and fall of his own chest. The morning would bring a silent harvest, screaming at all the world except its reaper.

_From Hell,_

_Mr Crawford,_

_Sir._

_I remember hearing that the police had caught me, but they won't fix me just yet. You know that, Jack. I have laughed at you when you look to be so clever and talk about 'being on the right track'. And that joke about the copycat killer gave me right fits. Grand work the last job was; I gave the man no time to squeal. And the girl before that... Well, I saved you half of her kidney. The other I fried and ate. It was _very_ nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if it wasn't so keen to get to work right away._

_Speaking of which, the next job should show you what's what. I would take a trip down to a certain little house if Wolftrap, if I were you. _

_Good Luck,_

_Catch me if you can, Mr Crawford._

The letter was written by hand, a beautiful copperplate, in red ink. The paper was high quality, but widely available. It came folded neatly atop a small Tupperware box, which contained half of a kidney preserved in red wine. Zeller had reckoned it to be human, though the tests were still being done. The lab monkeys would send them the results when they were at the scene.

Of course, Jack knew right away that the parcel wasn't a hoax. It couldn't be. It was too clean and well presented. He knew that not a single fingerprint would be found anywhere on that parcel; the handwriting sample would prove useless unless they could somehow force a suspect to deviate from their usual hand to write in copperplate; the ink he knew would be the kind you could get at any stationary store in America, and the fountain pen would be an expensive yet again widely available and widely owned brand.

More than anything it frustrated him that the Ripper was playing another game. Jack slammed his hands into the steering wheel in frustration, misaligning the wheels but to no real consequence. The road to Will's old house was empty at this time in the morning, anyway. It was empty most times of the day, in fact. Even more so now that Will wasn't there to drive out to the academy every day.

Jack knew that he was going to be walking in on a dead body. A Ripper kill. Confirmed before he even saw it. That should have settled him a little, but how could it? He had no idea what kind of scene the psychopath had left him; he had no idea what he was playing at this whole cycle. Not really. For all he knew he could be walking in on the rotting corpse of Miriam Lass. Or another part of her. And no damned evidence to go on.

But he was sure the Ripper was aiming to show him up in some way or other. Publicly shame him and the rest of the 'crack team' working on the Ripper cases. And it was connected to the copycat killer case, unless that was misdirection as well. Perhaps he had left them more circumstantial evidence that would lead to a dead end, or a wild goose chase. Perhaps it would be an empty house.

No, whatever the Ripper was planning this was the last of his cycle of victims and would yield the answers Jack was searching for. For better or for worse, the resolution lay in Will Graham's house.

_His phone vibrated_.

Drawing the car to a halt behind the other police vehicles that had arrived before them, Jack pulled his cell out of his pocket.

Ah. The kidney _was_ human.


End file.
